Pages

March 2, 2006

2-year diet anniversary!

Today marks Noah being on the keto diet for two years!!! Wow. I do have to say it has come more quickly than I imagined!! March 5 will officially be the day we can say that he has only had 1 seizure in 2 whole years. If you aren’t familiar with what the Ketogenic Diet really does to the body, here is my short version- Your body normally burns glucose for energy. While on the Ketogenic Diet, the body burns fat for energy. When the fat is burned, ketones are produced in the brain. Ketones control seizures. In ancient times, people would fast to rid themselves of seizures. The Ketogenic Diet mimics fasting, while the body can still have food. All of Noah's meals are weighed to the nearest gram.
An example of what Noah eats:breakfast- 15g crisp bacon, 22g butter, 45g fruit (low glycemic like strawberries or orange), & 60g heavy cream. I make his cream like ice cream- I can add a little sugar-substitute, food color, & natural flavor syrup. Lately he wants blue-raspberry!lunch- 23g chicken tenders (which is about 1 1/2 nuggets), 16g ranch dip, 11g olive oil, & 50g cream.A typical snack is 10g macadamia nuts with 4g butter. There is no room for error & no room for "extras." His meals are calculated to be specific by calories and all of the meal must be eaten in one sitting for the diet to work.Noah had hundreds of seizures a day. By day 4 on the diet (the first 4 days of the diet is initiated in the hospital) Noah was seizure-free. He has had only one seizure since being on the diet, and that was in the fall of 2004 due to an ear infection.

Noah is still the best little human being ever about it all. Just yesterday when he was having his cream, he looked at me with the sweetest eys and said "Thank you mommy for making yummy blue cream for me" and oh gosh did my heart want to break. Could he make it any easier for me?

13 comments:

Really like your blog...I can totally relate to you. We think a lot alike with kid-raising. My daughter was also dx with Doose, but then they changed it to LGS. We did the diet for 7 months and didn't have the great results like you, but we're gonna try again in the future. So glad to see it working! BTW, we're working on her "Wish" right now....Noah's sounded like fun! Did I mention that I too have a son named Noah? He thought it was neat to see a picture of another kid with his name!

Wow, you and your son are amazing. I have tears in my eyes reading this post. I'm glad to hear, in your latest post, that he gets to move off the diet. You are such a good mother for helping him through that!

We at The Patient Connection are currently running a research blog or online discussion on the subject of current treatment options for epilepsy. We are seeking the opinions of both people with epilepsy and parents/carers of children with epilepsy.

In particular we are interested in your experiences of medication, a ketogenic diets or indeed surgery.

We would love it if you could share your story or just post useful resources for suffers, carers and family members

To participate please go to

http://www.thepatientconnections.com/blog.asp?bid=&uid=36

The blog is anonymous and easy to use so I’d like to thank you for your contribution in advance.

We ourselves are on the Feingold diet, so I can relate to having to restrict the kids, certainly not moreso than you, but its just SO worth it, isn't it? Congrats to you, he's a doll, and you're a fabulous mom for taking the hard road to keep him healthy.

We did eat regularly because his diet was completely doctor-prescribed according to his specific needs and weight. It is only a diet to treat seizures, so not one that a normal person could exist on and still be healthy. He handled it very well and understood that he had to eat differently. We always tried to make it fun and as special as we could!